


Jeeves and the Purple Sparkler

by Nary



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9578885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: "What precisely does this... beverage entail, sir?""Gin, crushed blackberries, and a healthy dollop of champagne.  That's what gives it the sparkle, see?"Jeeves looked as though he'd swallowed an irritable hornet.  "Sir, the adulteration of champagne in such a manner is most inappropriate.  Furthermore, if I were to open a bottle now, you would then need to consume the remainder of its contents or else the rest would be wasted.""Then I shall have to do just that!" I proclaimed.  After all, I had nowhere to go for the remainder of the afternoon, and my Aunt Agatha would be joining me for dinner.  Getting squiffy sounded like a pleasant way to pass the time until my inevitable ritual disembowling after the soup course.Jeeves suppressed a sigh.  "Yes, sir."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arithanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/gifts).



The trouble all began, as with many great battles in history, over something quite insignificant. "Jeeves," I proclaimed, "did I spy a punnet of blackberries lurking in the kitchen?"

"Yes, sir. They are at the peak of their season at present, and I had thought to make a blackberry pie for dessert tonight, or perhaps a fool if you would prefer."

"Away with your pies and foolery, Jeeves! I have a much better idea for these delectable little bundles of delight!"

"Indeed, sir?" Jeeves' tone indicated that he anticipated my forthcoming suggestion with a hint of wariness.

"Yes, a cocktail I had the pleasure of sampling at the club last night called a purple sparkler."

"What precisely does this... beverage entail, sir?"

"Gin, crushed blackberries, and a healthy dollop of champagne. That's what gives it the sparkle, see?"

Jeeves looked as though he'd swallowed an irritable hornet. "Sir, the adulteration of champagne in such a manner is most inappropriate. Furthermore, if I were to open a bottle now, you would then need to consume the remainder of its contents or else the rest would be wasted."

"Then I shall have to do just that!" I proclaimed. After all, I had nowhere to go for the remainder of the afternoon, and my Aunt Agatha would be joining me for dinner. Getting squiffy sounded like a pleasant way to pass the time until my inevitable ritual disembowling after the soup course.

Jeeves suppressed a sigh. "Yes, sir." 

For the next several hours, Jeeves produced purple sparkler after purple sparkler, even better than the one I'd enjoyed at the Drones. They were consumed with a perhaps-unwise rapidity, and in due course I was pleasantly swozzled. "Absolutely splendid," I told Jeeves as he rescued my now-empty glass from a short, sharp shock upon the floor, the result of my over-expansive arm gesture. 

"Thank you, sir," he said. Even in his moments of most intense disapproval, Jeeves could never resist a compliment to his skills with the old shaker and tongs. 

My head was beginning to feel as though it might detach from my neck and drift away like a balloon. "Jeeves," I said floatily, "you really ought to try one of these. It's like... like Beethoven not being able to hear his own symphonies."

Jeeves proffered another purple sparkler. "Thank you, sir, but I fear this mixture would render me intemperate, and quite possibly ill."

"Intemperate, pah!" I scoffed most heartily, and may have put an affectionate arm about his shoulders, which he bore with a manly patience and dignity. "You've always been a positive paragon of temperance. You could do with a little less temperance, in fact. I know you're no teetotaller."

"No, sir, but my preferred libations do not customarily contain half a fruit salad." He mashed several of the offending blackberries with unusual vigor, and there was an unaccustomed furrow of his brow that gave me pause.

I swigged another mouthful of purple sparkler with enthusiasm, but a niggling doubt had crept into my sodden mind. "Jeeves," I asked with some temerity, "are you cross with me?"

"No, sir," he said, and I thought I detected a faint softening of his demeanour, a de-furrowing of the old brow, if you will. "I take great pleasure in fulfilling your wishes, even when I may think them... misguided. It is my utmost desire to satisfy you to the best of my ability, sir."

"Oh, well, that's all right then," I said blithely. "My wishes might often be misguided on many subjects - blackberries, boater hats, mustaches - but not where you're concerned. I bally well love you, Jeeves." The words came out before I'd given them a sober (or even a plastered) second thought, but as soon as I said them I recognized their innermost truth. 

Jeeves paused with the bottle of Bolly in midpour. The champagne foamed exuberantly over the edge of the glass, and he arrested its flow too late to prevent an uncharacteristic mess. "Sir," he said, putting the bottle down carefully and sounding as though I'd walloped him alongside the head with a mashie niblick, "I fear that you are inebriated."

"Well, that's true," I agreed, with what was no doubt a rather soppy smile. "But it doesn't change a damned thing about my shen- my stentiments - I say, about my feelings." And I put my arms around his shoulders, which were quite pleasantly broad and stable at a moment when I was most in need of such steadfastness.

"Sir, perhaps you ought to sit down," Jeeves said solicitously, no doubt alarmed by my untoward display of emotion. I did as I was told, since I was suddenly feeling rather wobbly in the knee region, but the chairward motion was unexpectedly complicated and I wound up pulling Jeeves down with me in the process.

"Well Jeeves," I said, looking up at him, "this is quite something, eh what?"

"Yes, sir," he agreed, but made no serious efforts to disentangle himself from my embrace, instead smoothing my tousled hair with one capable hand. "Just as you say."

"I'd ask you to call Aunt Agatha and cancel dinner, but that would mean you'd have to get up." I myself felt a distinct reluctance to move from beneath him, unless it was to the vicinity of the bed chamber, or perhaps the floor. 

"I may have neglected to mention," he said, quite close to one's shell-like, "that Mrs. Gregson telephoned earlier to inform you that she would be forced to miss dinner with you this evening. There was an unfortunate incident involving your cousin Thomas and a piece of taffy..."

"Dash it all, Jeeves, do you mean I've been fortifying myself all afternoon for nothing?"

"Not nothing, sir," he said, with a significant look.

"No, I suppose not nothing," I agreed, and planted a kiss on him that left us both breathless.

"Notwithstanding this immensely gratifying gesture, sir," Jeeves said when he'd managed to compose himself slightly, "I am reluctant to take advantage of you in such a delicate state."

"What about all that business about it being your greatest wish to satisfy my every desire and so forth?" I worked one hand under his waistcoat, tugging his shirt free from its precision tucking. 

"There is that, sir. Even when I might consider them misguided..." He ran his fingers along the side of my face, as though he was a sculptor working in some particularly malleable clay - which I suppose in that state I was.

"Jeeves, if you think this is misguided, you'd bally well better tell me now, before I get carried away and do something distinctly ungentlemanly with you."

He looked pensive, his eyes taking on that familiar faraway look that told me his magnificent brain was whirring away. "I think, sir," he said at last, "that I ought to take you to bed..."

I perked up. "Yes?"

"...and allow you to nap while I prepare dinner." Sensing my disappointment, he deposited another, more tender kiss on my lips. "If, after that, you still wish to proceed with your stated intentions, I would be most pleased - _intensely_ pleased, in fact - to oblige you."

"Oh, very well," I said, and reluctantly allowed him to climb off me and straighten his shirt. 

I wouldn't have known that anything was out of the ordinary if he hadn't grabbed the purple sparkler that was sitting forgotten on the side table and tossed it back in a single swallow. He made a face as though he'd just consumed a mouthful of turpentine, and shook his head briskly to clear it, then offered me his hand. "Permit me to escort you to bed, sir."

I leaned heavily on his arm as he walked me the short distance. "I intend to hold you to that, Jeeves," I told him. "We Woosters always keep our word, you know."

"Very good, sir," he replied with a newfound ardour. The process of getting into bed was, I must say, distinctly more enjoyable than usual. 

"Oh and Jeeves?" I said as he turned to go at last. 

"Yes, sir?"

I managed to lift my head from the pillow. "Next time you buy blackberries, go ahead and make that fool you wanted."

"Thank you, sir," he said with a smile. "There is another punnet in the pantry which I set aside for just such a purpose."

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [naryrising](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/naryrising) if you want to ask questions, make requests, or chat!


End file.
